It is sometimes necessary to mount “upright” (i.e. vertical, slanted, etc.) structures, such as telephone, electricity, or utility poles, and to secure these in place. In some instances, it is not possible to secure the base of these structures within the ground. This occurs in situations where the ground is too difficult to excavate, where space is limited, or where inserting structures into the ground is simply not suitable. In these situations, the upright structure can be mounted on top of the ground, and it must be secured to resist, among other influences, the moment loads imposed about the base of the structure by forces acting upon the rest of the structure (e.g. wind, snow, objects, etc.).
It is known in the art to secure these structures in place using anchors, which are attached to the structure, and which can be bored and/or inserted into the ground. The following US patents provide examples of such anchors:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,858 issued to LEGLER on Aug. 26, 1980 relates to a tri-anchor bracket for poles. Namely, this documents describes an anchor bracket for securing an article on a support surface. The anchor bracket comprises a clamp device for securement to the article and at least two anchor rods for anchoring in hard ground such as rock. Each of the anchor rods has a top end and a bottom end section with the bottom end section having an expanding end. A securement sleeve is provided about the bottom end section of each anchor rod and has at least an expandable section whereby the expandable section of the securement sleeve will be caused to expand by relative axial displacement with the expanding end of the anchor rod for anchoring the bottom end section in a hole of proper cross-section extending through the surface. The clamp device is attachable to the anchor rods for securement of the article on the support surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,844 also issued to LEGLER on Jun. 7, 1994 relates to a universal pole anchoring device. Indeed, this document describes a universal pole anchoring device for supporting utility poles vertically over a hard surface such as rock, concrete or the like. The device comprises a harness assembly connected about a base section of a pole to be supported on the hard surface. The harness is secured by bolts all about the base section. The harness assembly is comprised of harness members each defined by an anchor bolt attachment pipe having a pair of pole engaging clamps connected thereto in spaced alignment. The clamps support the attachment pipe spaced from and at an outwardly depending angle when the harness is secured to a pole. The harness assembly also has a predetermined number of harness numbers interconnected by the connecting bolts about the base section and dependent on the diameter of the pole. An anchor bolt assembly is connectible to each of the attachment pipes of the harness members to anchor the harness assembly in the hard surface to support the pole vertically thereover.
Some disadvantages of known anchors include: a) they are often not suitable for vertical structures made of composite materials or materials other than wood, such as fiberglass or metals; b) they may not provide sufficient support for newer vertical structures which are increasingly taller than older vertical structures, and which can impose higher loads due to their increased heights; c) conversely, known anchors need to be enlarged and/or extended to support increasingly taller vertical structures, which can significantly add to material costs, labor associated with the installation of the anchors, and complexity; d) etc.
Hence, in light of the aforementioned, there is a need for an improved device or system which, by virtue of its design and components, would be able to overcome or at least minimize some of the aforementioned prior art problems.